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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29093523">So Fair and Full of Flesh</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivieblake/pseuds/olivieblake'>olivieblake</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Once Upon a Hand Touch [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Emma - Jane Austen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, also featuring a cast of fae narrators, jane austen x fairytales, once upon a hand touch</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:28:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,696</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29093523</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivieblake/pseuds/olivieblake</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Miss Emma Woodhouse is handsome, clever, rich, and slowly transforming into queen of the damned.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>George Knightley/Emma Woodhouse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Once Upon a Hand Touch [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134506</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>64</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>So Fair and Full of Flesh</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>One of three Austen-inspired shorts featuring supernatural elements.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>The Queen of Faeries caught me when from my horse I fell </em> <em><br/>
</em> <em> And at the end of seven years she pays a tithe to hell </em> <em><br/>
</em> <em> I so fair and full of flesh, I feared it be myself. </em></p><p>
  <em>Tam Lin, legendary Scottish ballad</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>This morning it is Miss Emma Woodhouse’s meticulously allotted time for personal correspondence. She has lovely neat handwriting which comes very naturally. In fact, a great many things come naturally to Miss Emma Woodhouse, though as we say it we are aware that Emma Woodhouse’s nature is in fact the crux of the thing. (<em>Editrix note: Too leading? Potential area for revision.</em>) </p><p>Emma is a creature of great charm, handsome and clever and rich, and with very little to vex her. Though, occasionally it does happen from time to time.</p><p><em> Dear Mr Churchill</em>, writes our heroine, serenely charming Emma (<em>perhaps overdoing it, Mink</em>),</p><p>
  <em> I am terribly sorry to hear you were unable to attend your father’s wedding on account of your suffering aunt. I merely hoped YOUR MORTAL FLESH MIGHT BE DELIVERED UNTO THE FIERY PITS OF HELL </em>
</p><p>Here Emma pauses with a small sound of displeasure, stretching out her fingers and withdrawing a fresh leaf of parchment.</p><p><em> Dearest Mr Churchill</em>, she attempts again, <em> we missed you very much on the occasion of your father’s wedding to Miss Taylor, and EVER SHALL THE SPIRITS OF THE NETHERWORLD BEAR YOUR CORPSE UPON WAVES OF WRATH </em></p><p>Again Miss Emma Woodhouse sighs. Her neat brow furrows, lips trembling like a petal beneath a drop of dew. (<em>Evocative!</em>) </p><p>She is beginning to grow agitated. </p><p>
  <em> Mr Churchill, if only you would CONSENT TO BE DRAGGED, SCREAMING, unto the GATES OF SUFFERING, EVER PUNISHED for the SINS OF YOUR MORTAL FLESH, as the DEVIL WHOM I SERVE has thus requested AS PAYMENT FROM YOUR SPECIES THE HARROWING CRIES OF </em>
</p><p>“My goodness,” exclaims Emma, dismayed by the manic scrawls of her lettering—which is not actually hers, or at least not the gentle art of feminine calligraphy in which her former governess Miss Taylor (now Mrs Churchill) has so carefully schooled her.</p><p>To Emma’s dismay, this is not the first time she has felt the strange sensation that some infernal creature was foisting its way out of her chest. She has so hoped to put this inconvenient quickening off further, perhaps another year or so into the future. After all, her success at matchmaking on behalf of the new Mrs Churchill seems to have successfully put her symptoms at ease. Until now. </p><p>Unfortunately, the craving for flesh can reach its peak around noon. We can relate. (<em>Perhaps too frightening for a mortal audience? Though, even in “fiction”—ha ha—the truth will out.</em> <em>Hm. Stet for now.</em>)</p><p>“Something wrong, Miss Woodhouse?” asks a voice behind Emma, who jumps, quickly obscuring the letters so that her visitor will not glimpse the spectacular madness which occasionally leaps to her hand.</p><p>It is George Knightley, of course, gentleman farmer and landowner of decent disposition and fascinatingly little conceit. We like him. (<em>This is not relevant to the story as it currently stands but I suppose it must be said and so I shall permit the saying</em>.)</p><p>“Let me guess,” he says. “The linens not to your liking? Your social calendar too disappointingly banal?” </p><p>George Knightley takes a seat beside Miss Emma Woodhouse, pretending to find her irritating. This is part of why we like him. He engages the romantic dance so very well and we are very fond of dancing, and indeed of bacchanalia of all sorts. It is the thing for which we are most famed, aside from mischief and the moon. (<em>This is also not relevant, but unfortunately I have just learned that Ariel was hogging the pen, so someone will have to strike it out later. Most likely me by the looks of it. How I wish one of you would simply kidnap a bard and have it done with! The old one’s going crusty in the cellar</em>.)</p><p>“Don’t you have manure to shovel?” queries Emma in dulcet tones.</p><p>“You’re not writing Frank Churchill again, are you? He’s a grown man, Emma,” says Knightley. “If he wished to come to his father’s wedding, he would have. Everyone knows this so-called illness of his aunt is a farce. How else could she be so close to death whenever there is an event Frank Churchill cares to miss?”</p><p>Here we must interrupt to say it is not a farce. Some people do not take sufficient care with their use of our lands. As such they may find spores and molds popping up with a ceaseless virility that continuously plagues them. While this may be our doing, it is certainly not our fault. As it says in the mortal book, everyone eventually sits down to a banquet of consequences. (<em>This may not be an accurate quote but as none of us can handle the book in question without being set perilously aflame, it will have to stand. Also it feels right in spirit.</em>)</p><p>“You are always so dismissive of Mr Churchill. I can’t imagine why,” says Emma. “I hear he’s quite handsome. And perfectly charming.”</p><p>“I am also handsome,” grumbles George Knightley. This is not what he actually says but it’s what we all heard and besides, Ariel isn’t listening attentively. </p><p>Emma typically enjoys her near-daily sparring with George Knightley, her neighbor and only true critic, but presently her mind is elsewhere. You see, the quickening Emma is experiencing is something which has been dormant for most of her youth. Now that she is of age, it will begin: the hunger for carnality. The ceaseless desire to tear open flesh and rot souls according to her pleasure. Mischief, as we mentioned, is one word for it. It is what we all feel upon coming of age, though it will be much stronger for her. She is, after all, our queen, and while this comes with privilege it is also riddled with responsibilities. Mostly, the tithe.</p><p>To explain: in recent years our court has been under siege from jealous rivals. Thus, some two decades hence, we entrusted our most precious queen to the care of a very conscientious and—as we’re now realizing—slightly mad human of sufficient wealth, whom we will refer to herein as the Father. By him Emma has been cared for in every way, despite being raised as a mortal. Though we have been observing her for some time, it is only now that she is beginning to show signs of awakening.</p><p>As we speak, Emma’s awareness of the tithe is nipping at her spectral heels. Soon she will have to consume a mortal man and give him over to the dark spirits, whose rule by which we all abide. The lovelier she grows, the more carnivorous as well. (<em>I see Merrick took over, did he? This practically screams of him</em>.)</p><p>“I do wish you’d not be so disagreeable,” Emma says to Knightley. “One of these days I may throw you over to the shadows just to see what happens.”</p><p>“I beg your pardon?” says Knightley.</p><p>“They seem to have teeth now,” muses Emma. “I see them occasionally, lining the walls of my bedroom. Occasionally crowding around my bath.”</p><p>“Did you say something?” says a bemused Knightley. “My apologies, it’s only that I seem to have a slight buzzing in my ear—” </p><p>(<em>Who was responsible for this? Never mind, don’t tell me, it’s better I don’t know.</em>)</p><p>“I only mean to say,” continues Emma ruefully, “that I ought to direct my attention to something more charitable. Matchmaking, perhaps. Otherwise I grow concerned I may suffer some kind of malignancy… but, oh,” she groans, “don’t tell my father, he’ll only fret.”</p><p>“You’ll have to think of your own marriage someday,” shouts Knightley, still attempting to dislodge the obstacle from his ear. “Perhaps that’s why you think of Mr Churchill, who would himself not think of anyone at all…?”</p><p>Emma is less than charmed. “I find you’re bothering me immensely,” she says, unaware as yet that she could simply turn her present companion to a giant pile of spiders or otherwise haunt his dreams if she cared to. The latter being something she does regardless, unbeknownst to her. </p><p>“Believe me,” Knighley flagrantly lies. “I could easily say the same.”</p>
<hr/><p>Soon after, Miss Emma Woodhouse awakens from a very strange dream. </p><p>In the dream, she slides her fangs into a male’s tender neck as he whimpers in her ear. Oddly she feels herself almost overcome with fever, at once overheated and damp with a chill. She slides a testing hand below her dressing gown and crows unexpectedly at the sensation. “How troubling!” Emma exclaims to no one, determining it best not to send for a doctor, which would only worry the Father. </p><p>She later thinks perhaps it was Frank Churchill she saw in the dream, which concerns us. As queen consorts go, he sounds a poor one, even if he will eventually be torn to shreds by the Devil Himself upon occasion of the tithe. (<em>Huzzah!</em>)</p><p>It is then that we decide collectively to give our queen a Handmaiden. Understandably the quickening is a lot to handle, and anyway, they are easy to find: maidens. The countryside is rife with them. Lip thinks a nice tree sprite while Ariel suggests the boarder house, which he happens to know is filled with virgins. Ultimately we convene a vote, and for lack of appropriate sprites (<em>nosy bitches</em>) we determine: the boarder house it is. </p>
<hr/><p>Miss Emma Woodhouse is fast friends with Harriet Smith, our carefully selected Handmaiden. Thankfully the Handmaiden seems to recognize appropriately the jewel that is Miss Woodhouse. In fact, she fawns over Miss Woodhouse in a way that some others—namely, George Knightley—do not find pleasing.</p><p>“It worries me that she merely sets about adoring you all day,” Knightley says to Emma, as if he does not do the very same thing only poorly. (<em>Ha!</em>) “It can’t be good for either of you.”</p><p>“I disagree,” says Emma. “I’m hardly feeling devilish at all.”</p><p>“What?” says Knightley, poking at his ears.</p><p>“Though occasionally I do find myself beset with a craving for blood,” Emma admits.</p><p>“What? Are you speaking? Miss Woodhouse, I cannot—”</p><p>“Can’t think why,” Emma sighs, attending morosely to her gloves. “But it’s better when Miss Smith’s around, so I’ll have to kindly remind you to stay the hell out of it.”</p><p>Knightley, having dislodged the mysterious ringing at his ears (<em>seriously, is this wise?</em>) bellows, “You really must have a care to reality, Emma. You are planting it in Miss Smith’s head that she could do better than her station! What is it that gives her such credentials—or you, for that matter?” (<em>It saddens me to think him so unaware but I confess, at the same time it delights me.</em>)</p><p>“You are being unnecessarily harsh with me and I must say, it makes me want to puncture your larynx,” says Emma. “Do you know I have a small but very detailed effigy of you? I can’t think how it got here. Regardless,” she laments impatiently, “I feel the need to fling it into the hearth and then soak in your ashes for my evening bath.”</p><p>“What?” says Knightley, who is inadvertently shouting now. “Listen, the point is thanks to you, Miss Smith has turned down—and, may I add, <em> broken the heart of</em>—a very good man and reputable farmer, with whom she could have had a decent, contented life—”</p><p>“No friend of mine deserves to settle for decency when she could have gluttonous wealth, or at very least some possessed minstrels,” says Emma quite correctly. “And anyway I can’t lose her. Whenever she’s gone I get all murdery.”</p><p>“I’ve got to see a doctor about this,” mutters Knightley, nudging again at his ear, “but you should know that I disapprove greatly of your selfishness with Miss Smith. I disapprove heartily indeed, and I am ashamed to tell you, Miss Woodhouse, that you do wrong her. Very much. The man you have in mind for her will only harm her, and—” </p><p>“And what business is that of yours?” retorts Emma. </p><p>“<em>You </em> are my business,” snaps Knightley, before fumbling to amend, “You and your foolishness, that is.”</p><p>“Well, there’s always hell for you,” says Emma, though at the time we are writing this, it is clear she still considers Frank Churchill the primary subject of her fantasies. Presumably the idea of consuming Mr Knightley is pleasant enough at times, but the outcome, his being gradually de-limbed and vascularly emptied…? </p><p>It is best she swears off such prospects altogether, Emma reminds herself, and fixes herself to her aforementioned cause of matchmaking.</p><p>“You’ll see, Mr Elton is already half in love with Miss Smith,” she says, “and when they wed I’ll be given another few months’ reprieve until my next great service to humanity. You’d be surprised how interchangeable human flesh is with vows of eternal devotion.” (<em>She is very correct about this, our clever queen. Lust is a sublime alternative to corporeal defilement.</em>)</p><p>“What?” yells Knightley, before Emma finally gives up and leaves.</p>
<hr/><p>Mr Elton disappoints our queen, as all human men are wont to do. </p><p>“It is you I love!” he exclaims to Emma, who is deeply insulted. (<em>And rightfully so!</em>) “Only your hand would I so desire.”</p><p>“Gross,” says Emma, who, although very willing to sacrifice Mr Elton to the tithe, is still quite mortally hindered by a dedication to human courtship rituals and therefore cannot imagine devoting her life to him in any way. “I really think you’re making a terrible mistake and frankly, it makes me very angry. I find I’d like very much to trample you with hooves.” (<em>Ah, so she is beginning to suspect that she has them! Magnificent; I worried she may not have come by this revelation without our intervention.</em>)</p><p>“Oh, do it,” pleads Mr. Elton slavishly. But Emma, who is irritated, does not. </p><p>(<em>And who could blame her? What a boor he is. He’s gone, did you say? Well, let us be sure he does not return. I should hate to hear more of him</em>.)</p><p>(<em>He’s back already? Lucifer almighty. What a thorough disappointment humans are</em>.)</p>
<hr/><p>Fortunately the arrival of Frank Churchill is very helpful to the cause of the impending tithe. The vain but sufficiently fleshful Mr Churchill is indeed quite charming, and for a time Emma’s dreams flare up with what she is sure are further visions of him. In one she takes hold of his curls in each hand like reins and rides him, pounding, through the woods beyond Highbury. In another she sets tongues of flame upon the contours of his belly to drive him to gnashing fits of anguish. In yet another she carves open his chest, takes his heart in her hands, and bends her cheek to it tenderly, whispering barbarities until his very veins burst open for love of her command.</p><p>“You’re doing it again,” says Knightley, observing the glazed-over look on Emma’s face. Oddly it is almost always in Mr. Knightley’s presence that she suffers these odd delusions. (<em>Shall we be more blatant? Our queen is sufferingly horny and not one person is making any effort to fix it. At this rate I shan’t be surprised if we all lose our heads in addition to our once great fortune.</em>)</p><p>“Doing what?”</p><p>“Lost in fantasy, I expect? You’re drooling a bit.” Knightley reaches out and brushes her lip with a gloved tip of his finger. Emma thinks very calmly and affectionately of removing the appendage bone by bone, fashioning it around her collar as a necklace. (<em>Or perhaps from her ears like tiny chandeliers? Just a thought.</em>)</p><p>Then she flushes, turning her cheek away. “I’m pleased we are… resolved, Mr Knightley. I meant to thank you for your kindness with Harriet.”</p><p>Ah yes, it appears we have forgotten to mention the earlier events of this ball given by the Westons, in which Mr Knightley has asked Emma’s sad little Handmaiden to dance when she was cast aside by the intolerable Mr Elton. (<em>I know time is odd for us but we could at least make an effort to be vigilant!</em>)</p><p><b>ADDENDUM:</b> Well, since we’re being forced to make an addendum against our wishes (<em>shut up Merrick) </em> it should now be noted that Mr Elton’s gone and married a horrifying harpy that he’s idiotically mistaken for a woman. We do not mean to speak poorly of other creatures of the night but this is simply a dreadful fact. Somehow he has failed to notice the gleam in her eyes, which is very common for mortal men. It is no wonder he would not make a fit consort. In any case he, having been spurned by our queen and now secured beneath the hold of a malignant spirit (and also being sort of an uncharitable dick by nature), thus spurned The Handmaiden, who was henceforth publicly humiliated. We will of course beset his sleep with horror in retribution ( <em>! I should fucking hope so</em>) but to our relief Mr Knightley was kind enough to step in, saving the Handmaiden from terrific embarrassment before such a reprisal was technically necessary. Though it is on our to-do list. (<em>Oh, to be sure.</em>)</p><p>Returning to our story— </p><p>“Surely you know,” Mr Knightley attempts, and then falters. “Emma, you must know—”</p><p>Again he stumbles, battling the supreme uncleverness of personal truth. We think is sweet and incredibly mortal, full of the usual inadequacies of his kind. (<em>You are really showing your hand here, Perrin.</em>)</p><p>“Perhaps we should reconvene the dancing,” Emma suggests. She most likely feels very warm. As a species we run hot, even without the dogged necessities of the queen’s hellbound tithe. </p><p>“Shall I escort you toward Mr Churchill?” asks Knightley. "He is over there with Miss Jane Fairfax.” Ugh, Jane Fairfax. (<em>Perrin, a word?</em>)</p><p>“Why do we not dance, you and I?” asks Emma alternatively. “I see no reason why not. Aside from our natural antagonism—”</p><p>“Naturally,” acknowledges Knightley.</p><p>“—and my continued desire to make a decorative wreath of your bones—”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“—you are not altogether repulsive.” With this she smiles at Knightley, engaging the full radiance of her ghastly beauty, radiating nightshade throughout the room. She is, for the moment, fully clothed in terror and spectacle, shrouded in shadow with the inner gleam of a waking nightmare. (<em>I can only presume he is understandably besotted.</em>)</p><p>“You do not repulse me either,” says Knightley, offering her his arm. “Not entirely.”</p><p>“You are sweet to say so,” she teases, like the thread of a spider’s web.</p><p>The two begin to dance. Disappointingly it is nothing like the orgy our queen might otherwise host were she here among her faithful servants. Their fingers do brush, though only fleetingly. In the end it is their eyes which arrest them; as though chained by troubling, endless devotion, they remain tethered to one excoriating fate. (<em>A bit much Madge? Albeit quite sweet.</em>)</p><p>It is a moment such as Mab might find delight, may her eternal soul rot in hell; throughout the room there are a great many players. A soulless vase of a man; an adequate human woman of whom we shall not speak because she is dull and ugh; a lovelorn Handmaiden; and, of course, our queen of the night and her quarrelsome but aptly named neighbor. </p><p>So many possible lovers, and yet only two who draw breath as one. </p><p>“I feel ill,” whispers Emma. “A bit sweaty.”</p><p>“I feel the same,” murmurs Knightley. </p><p>“Perhaps I am parched.”</p><p>“Perhaps.”</p><p>“Though I feel convinced that only blood will truly sate me.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“You are kind,” Emma realizes softly. “And thoughtful. And—”</p><p>It occurs to her then that the tender neck into which she sinks her teeth in dreams is not, after all, Frank Churchill’s.</p><p>“You are so fair and full of flesh,” Emma whispers, and Knightley closes his eyes, overcome with an odd, lingering shiver for which he will blame a sudden, wintry chill.</p>
<hr/><p>We are hesitant to discuss Jane Fairfax, a very fine and accomplished mortal female who nonetheless is not a queen and therefore we can’t imagine what possible importance she could have in the story. Who gives a damn if her skill at the pianoforte is so proficient? It is Miss Emma Woodhouse who can raise the dead with naught but a well-spoken rhyme; and indeed, whose singing voice can drown a man or pierce his scrotum. What good is it to have an “intelligent woman” hanging around if she is not also the vessel of Satan on earth? None, I should think. Still, our editrix insists that some coverage of Miss Jane Fairfax is necessary, although we are not sure who elected her king of the fucking world. (<em>Very funny, Ariel. And again my interference would not be necessary if you’d just steal a new bard for whenever our queen sees fit to return to our court. I keep telling you the old one is starting to smell.</em>)</p><p>Unfortunately Jane Fairfax visits Emma in a dream, and therefore we have no choice but to mention she is also present in our narrative.</p><p>“Hello, Queen of the damned,” says Jane Fairfax, who is not actually Jane Fairfax but the Devil Most Foul; His Darkness, the keeper of Souls and Death; His Unholiness, to whom the tithe is owed septennially. “You must be aware the time is upon us to collect,” says the Devil Jane Fairfax. “Should you wish to remain on earth, there is required a tithe: a mortal soul to keep ablaze the life of your nightmare court. Without such tithe your court will wither and die, and you will become each day more a monster.”</p><p>When Emma wakes she says aloud, “Drat. I knew I never liked her.” But eventually the shock fades and the message becomes clear to her. She is not merely Miss Emma Woodhouse, but something very much else.</p><p>It dogs her thoughts. Her Handmaiden’s sorrows bore and plague her. Mr Frank Churchill invites her out and she speaks thoughtlessly, wounding one of the guests who is also not queen and therefore unimportant. (<em>Should this not have SOME significance…? True, though, that no other merits recommend the mortal in question so very well, continue on.</em>)</p><p>It is later when Knightley accosts her. “You should not treat [useless human] so poorly! She deserves your compassion and not your scorn—”</p><p>“I know this,” says Emma bitterly. She is disappointed to have behaved so; Frank Churchill brings out the worst of her demons. She understands now why she had so hoped it would be him in her fantasies. He would be enjoyable to devour, and even sweeter to destroy. </p><p>Our queen grows ever nearer her throne, but rather than praise her, Knightley is resolute. “It was badly done, Emma, very badly done—”</p><p>“Do you not think that I know?” snarls Emma harshly.</p><p>In that moment she is alight and aflame and again our nightmare queen shows us glimpses of her future; of the throne for which she is destined. Indeed, at that very moment, we, who have been living in unmentionable poverty, do see some improvement in the decor. (<em>It is not appropriate, Mink, to discuss openly the substandard court to which we have become sadly accustomed. Think if a human were to discover it! Our Queen will return and hell will be satisfied and all will finally be well. We will drink and dance and be rid of the rotting bard! Perhaps we will even get a minstrel.</em>)</p><p>In the end Knightley storms away. Emma, battling her true darkness, overcomes her rapacious nature long enough for a visit with the useless human. Things pass. The Father is kind but still unfortunately mortal. The humans are pleased about something and Miss Emma Woodhouse receives much praise. </p><p>This is not important to us; we shall henceforth move on. After all, doom is sure to surface soon, which will be much more exciting for everyone involved.</p>
<hr/><p>Miss Emma Woodhouse’s dreams in which Intolerable Human/Devil Jane Fairfax warns her of the forthcoming tithe continue. She shares this with the Handmaiden, who is unfortunately so easily swept away by romance that we suspect Puck’s involvement. When the Handmaiden reveals it is Mr Knightley for whom her foolish heart yearns, Emma is struck with the sudden desire to take hold of a sharpened edge of her bed and stake it through her Handmaid’s heart. She does not, presumably due to human fondness; we are all disappointed.</p><p>Without the Handmaiden, Emma grows ever more vexed. She considers drafting a thoughtful correspondence but there is little of her previous voice left before devolving to demonic shrieks. She sleeps fitfully, levitating several feet above her bed. Whenever Devil Jane Fairfax does disappear from her thoughts, Emma’s dreams again return to Knightley, who is clearer now in her imaginations. It is definitively <em>his</em> tongue which runs along the arch of her sprightly fae feet; <em>his</em> lips upon her midnight brow. </p><p>For no real reason that we can see and certainly nothing we are responsible for, Knightley takes it into his head that he should pay a visit to our queen. It seems he has been tormented of late. (<em>Very funny. Who did this? Perrin? Never mind, don’t tell me, the last thing we need is some kind of formal inquiry. We have enough trouble with the rats as it is.</em>)</p><p>“I cannot make speeches, Emma,” says Knightley, beseeching our Lady of Darkness. “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.” (<em>Did he really say this? We should consider him for captive bard if the role of hellbound consort does not work out.</em>) “But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it—"</p><p>This plainly distresses Emma. “Mr. Knightley, please—”</p><p>“You understand me, don’t you?” he pleads.</p><p>“I… I do, but—” She sighs a breath of tendrilous nightfall. “There is but one small problem.”</p><p>“Tell me what it is,” Knightley insists at once.</p><p>“You shall not care for it. Doubtless you will not like it.”</p><p>“You tell me things I do not like all the time.” This he says without even a quarrelsome tone, which is already quite remarkable.</p><p>“Perhaps, but—” Lacking any proper introduction to the subject, Emma surrenders to necessity. “Mr Knightley,” she confesses, “I’m afraid I may be queen of hell.”</p><p>She waits, curious whether he will hear her. It is not at first clear whether he does.</p><p>“Did you hear me?” she queries intently.</p><p>“Hm?”</p><p>After a heavy sigh, Emma gathers her composure with moonlit grace. “I said—”</p><p>“No, I heard you,” Knightley interrupts. (<em>I see you lot have finally grown tired of your little mischief? Timely.</em>) “I only wondered,” he continues, “why such a thing should make any difference to me?”</p><p>“Does it not?” asks Emma, bewildered.</p><p>“Not even remotely,” says Knightley. “Does it distress you?”</p><p>“Yes. At times. Well,” she admits, “it’s only that I have the most terrible sensation I might very soon have to destroy you.”</p><p>“You do so every day,” he promises her. “Every minute, and gladly.”</p><p>“Still,” she laments, “you cannot possibly think I would be pleased to see you tossed to the pits of Hades, do you?”</p><p>“What I cannot possibly imagine is an alternative, if that is indeed what you want,” replies Knightley.</p><p>(<em>Is no one going to comment? Clearly this is a man who knows how to love a Queen!</em>)</p><p>“Well,” says Emma. “That leaves only one problem, then.”</p><p>“The matter of my forthcoming desecration?”</p><p>“That,” Emma agrees. “And also, clearly Harriet is going to hate me.”</p><p>“I envy her that she knows how,” replies Knightley. “Seems thoroughly improbable.”</p><p>Emma remains fretful. “I shall have to take care of it, and soon. Oh, but as to the matter of your bodily destruction—”</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“Perhaps it can be avoided?” she proposes.</p><p>“That would be lovely, I should think,” Knightley agrees. “Very convenient.”</p><p>“It stands to reason that if I am queen of anything it should come with some kind of benefit,” Emma considers.</p><p>“This is very true.”</p><p>“I don’t suppose you’d think badly of me if I selected another victim for the hellbound tithe in your place? A sort of bait and switch?”</p><p>“I suppose as a gentleman it would be poor form,” Knightley says uncomfortably. “And if only one man can be both loved and destroyed by you, it ought to be me.”</p><p>“You’re sure?”</p><p>“Only marginally.”</p><p>“Well, first let me see what’s to be done about Harriet,” says Emma. “And then, I suppose…”</p><p>She trails off, her expression a dewy, gossamer veil of starlight.</p><p>“I shall be here,” promises Mr Knightley, and it is a vow. So it shall be done.</p>
<hr/><p>The following evening, after her arrangement for the Handmaiden’s marriage which renders her not a Handmaiden and therefore no longer of interest to us (henceforth she can be referred to as Displaced Handmaiden if at all necessary), Miss Emma Woodhouse takes control of her destiny. </p><p>“If I am queen, as you say I am,” Emma says slowly to Devil Jane Fairfax, “then surely I have some sort of authority.”</p><p>“I am the authority,” corrects Jane Fairfax. “It is to me whom the tithe must be paid.”</p><p>“And you are…?”</p><p>“The eternal darkness,” Jane Fairfax replies, “of course.”</p><p>“Oh, my goodness, yes.” Emma pauses to consider how much could reasonably be asked of such a figure. “Well, may I consult with my court before the payment of the tithe?”</p><p>Jane Fairfax thinks on it for a second. “You may have an evening. But then the tithe must be paid by a mortal most fair and full of flesh.”</p><p>“Hm,” says Emma, discouraged. “But that can only be my Mr Knightley!”</p><p>“I sympathize,” offers Jane Fairfax. “But contractually this is non-negotiable.”</p><p>Upon Emma’s waking it is still dark. She feels in her bones a mysterious sensation, as if she and the night are yet one and the same, and with an urgency that feels quite natural, she summons us to her side for the first time.</p><p>“Oh, my word,” she says, eyes widening. “You’re all in rather a poor state of things, aren’t you? I had no idea. Well, surely there is something that can be done. After all, I think it is natural that I should have my choice of husband, don’t you?”</p><p>(<em>I am cutting nearly all of this. Mink says some very useless things and Madge waxes poetic and Merrick contributes further imbecility… I cannot possibly conceive of why it should go on for so many pages. There are at least thirty here! Have you all lost your senses? It is only interesting for the sake of historical record to point out that I, Your Editrix Herself, is the one who is forced to inform Queen Miss Emma Woodhouse of her extraordinary power and the nightly rides of her court. The rest of you are very useless, by the way. You know what? I’ll just write the rest myself. We’re supposed to be making preparations, anyway. Feasts to be had, rituals to be slaughtered, et cetera. Things are about to change.</em>)</p>
<hr/><p>It is on a quiet evening that Mr Knightley reaches for the hand of our queen.</p><p>“So,” he says. “Have you considered my offer?”</p><p>“I rather wonder if <em> you </em> have considered it fully,” counters Emma. “You do understand there will be consequences, don’t you?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“And you realize I would not be free to join you at the Abbey.”</p><p>“You could bring your court, if you desire. And your father.”</p><p>“Oh, but you know he would not go.”</p><p>“Very well, then I shall join you.”</p><p>“You would quit the Abbey?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“You would risk life and limb and immortal soul?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“To join me in my court of the damned?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“You would sacrifice your independence to be my consort, forever on bended knee, or else up in arms to defend me and mine?”</p><p>“Yes,” says Mr Knightley.</p><p>It is then that Emma tells her future consort a secret: that as Queen of the Faeries she is granted certain powers, including a helpful little enchantment that will make the flames of hell feel like little more than a small, feathery tickle. Thus he need not suffer too greatly upon the occasion of the tithe. </p><p>“Really,” she adds, “it is mostly a matter of going. Mortal sacrifice and all that.”</p><p>“Understandable.”</p><p>“So you’re amenable?”</p><p>“So long as it does not impede the harvest. I do have farmers counting on me.”</p><p>“It will not.”</p><p>“Then I don’t see why not.”</p><p>“It is really so simple?” Emma asks, amused.</p><p>“Yes,” says her consort. “It is really so simple.”</p><p>It is then that Miss Emma Woodhouse, rightful Queen to the Faerie Court, kisses her lover and beckons him onward, into the night.</p><p>“Shouldn’t we be wed first?” asks Knightley, concerned for our queen’s human honor despite having been recently informed that such a thing is a waste of time. </p><p>“There are other vows that matter here,” Emma says, and when she reaches for him, the candle flame sputters and dies. She draws a thin line from the hinge of his jaw down the side of his neck, as if she would split him open and crawl verily inside him. Then she continues onward, from the seam of his chest to the stuttering inhale of his gut, which sings like eerie nightsong. Already she is crowned in the glow of eventide, festooned with the glory of vespers.</p><p>When at last the lips of our queen meet those of her consort, the night swallows them up, her court afire with glee. It will be many hours yet before the dancing will cease, but we shall revel as our rituals require. In the torment of our joy, the ecstasy of our anguish, we will not grow tired. Nor will she.</p><p>When the righteous queen descends her spectral throne, we trust she will be well and rightly sated by her chosen Knightley, our aptly titled Prince of Night.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134506">Thank you for celebrating my birthday with me!</a>
</p></blockquote></div></div>
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